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Vince Kehoe
Vince Kehoe Vince Kehoe

Social media marketing can play a key role in helping inventors test the market and promote their products effectively. There are several reasons why social media marketing should figure prominently in an inventor's marketing and monetization strategy.

No inventor can afford to ignore the roughly 4.2 billion people who use social media across the world. If they ignore them, they will be missing out on a huge chunk of potential customers. The average person spends more than two and a half hours every day scrolling through social media posts, which roughly amounts to half the time that they spend on their phone. Leveraging social media is an effective strategy to boost brand awareness and get more potential customers in front of their product.

Secondly, social media campaigns can also help inventors significantly reduce the costs of test marketing their products. Paid social media campaigns, whether they are on Facebook or on LinkedIn, are very inexpensive compared to conventionally used methods like focus groups or trial runs of products in local stores. One main benefit that social media platforms offer is that it is possible to set realistic and measurable mini-goals to help determine if a particular attribute needs to be highlighted or attracts more attention from potential customers.

Instead of spending money, time, and effort on manufacturing and packaging an invention, inventors can try out different iterations of campaigns to determine which demographics they should target in terms of age group, region, and interests for their invention based on the response they get to individual campaigns. They no longer need to conduct customer surveys in physical mode with cart prototypes of their product and promote it at trade shows to garner interest. What they can do instead is conduct online polls, online ad campaigns to test which ads and which attributes garner interest and showcase their product through slickly produced 3D renderings, videos, and images depicting their product or its attributes.

Another advantage that social media platforms offer is that a campaign can be launched across multiple platforms with relevant content. They thus get access to feedback from potential users in a manner that is relatively free of biases with regard to age or location. People who respond to such polls or campaigns do so on a more voluntary basis, and thus inventors can gauge better which hooks and calls to action are more effective with a particular audience.

Just as in the case of patenting, building a good following on social media channels can significantly help inventors if they are seeking to license their product to another company for manufacturing on a royalty basis or for a one-time fee. It adds to the credibility of their invention if they are able to prove that their concept or invention has gained good traction among social media users.

There is another strategy that inventors can use to test market their product after building up an organic following. That is to solicit orders under the ruse that it actually exists or to take pre-orders for their product by honestly stating that it is still under development. This can also help them get a fairly accurate idea of the response that their product would get, especially if it is complex or highly expensive to produce. Previously, this was possible only through platforms like KickStarter and Indiegogo, but now it is also possible to do this through social media.

To sum up, social media marketing offers inventors numerous benefits in terms of product development and test marketing. The costs involved are nominal and can be under USD 1000, and the benefits far outweigh the costs in terms of both short-term and long-term value unlocking.

About

Vince Kehoe is President of Innovative Licensing & Promotion Inc.; he has over thirty years of experience guiding investors through issues such as patenting, manufacturing, and securing licensing deals.

Media contact:
Name: Vincent Kehoe
Email: vince@2innovative.net